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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Punishment for rape: Discussion forum

IMF Chief and French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn got caught raping his hotel maid in New York. This led the French to say that American law is tougher on rape than French law. In fact the London Daily Mail reports that current French President Sarkozy warned Strauss-Kahn about American prosecution for sex crimes, ‘Over there they don't joke about this sort of thing,’ Sarkozy reportedly said.

I was wondering if this was really true, and I tried to look up rape sentences. This turned out to be hard to do; for example the US has different laws in each state, but the average time served is 5.4 years nationwide; the average sentence is 11.8 year.

In France the standard sentence is 15 years. 20 years for raping a minor. 30 years for killing the victim,and over 30 years for torture. Many countries have similar escalating sentences.

This is cobbled together from a variety of sources.

There are a number of countries where the punishment is death. In Britain the punishment is "life" although I bet there is more subtlety than that.Finally the Bible says that a man raping a woman has to pay the father a 50 shekels of silver, and then marry the woman. Raping a married woman is punishable by death.In INDIAThe recent shocking news of gang rape of a girl in bus in the capital city has spread a fire in minds of all Indians regarding the safety of women in India. Various countries all over the globe have strict rules regarding the action against the 'criminals'. In the Indian Penal Code too strict rules are mentioned (Section 376 in The Indian Penal Code, 1860). But do you think its just words? What is the role of government if it cannot provide the security of its citizens? What is the significance of the fundamental right, Right to Life and Liberty? What's your suggestion about the new rules/ system that should come up for the safety of our girls, our sisters, our motherland.? Post in the comment box below.Speak out, Let the world hear...